Lot Essay
Recently published in the Corpus Rubenianum volume on Portraits of Unidentified and Newly Identified Sitters Painted in Antwerp with an entry by Katelijne Van der Stighelen, this portrait has been dated to circa 1615, when Rubens was already the most important and fashionable artist working in Antwerp and was steadily establishing the reputation that would put him at the centre of the European artistic stage.
Following eight years in Italy, where he had worked principally in Rome and at the court of Vincenzo I Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, Rubens returned to his native Flanders in October 1608, upon the death of his mother. The conditions in Antwerp were ideal for creating exciting opportunities for the promising young artist: the start of the Twelve Years’ Truce with Spain (1609–1621) ushered in a prolonged period of political stability and economic prosperity, the likes of which the region had not experienced for half a century. In 1609, Rubens was given the singular honour of being appointed court painter in Brussels to the enlightened Archdukes Albert and Isabella, while being granted the privilege to remain in Antwerp and carry out commissions for other patrons. The decade following his Italian sojourn was marked by the production of an uninterrupted string of seminal masterpieces, including his two monumental altarpieces, The Raising of the Cross, commissioned in 1610 for the church of St Walburga, and its spiritual pendant The Descent from the Cross, painted in 1611–1614 for Antwerp Cathedral. In addition, Rubens carried out private commissions, attracting and befriending a plethora of enthusiastic Antwerp patrons, such as the city’s burgomeister Nicolaas Rockox, the spice merchant Cornelis van der Geest, and the printmaker Balthasar Moretus.
Ludwig Burchard was the first modern scholar to identify the painting as a work by Rubens, following its misattribution to Mierevelt at the Sotheby’s sale in London in February 1960. Burchard studied the portrait ‘at Dr. A. Scharf’s place’ following the auction and in the report of his visit noted that the work was very similar to the early Portrait of a Clock-Maker (So-Called Architect or Geographer) now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, dating from 1597 (K. Van Der Stighelen and H. Vlieghe, op. cit., no. 189, fig. 72). Burchard later noted, in March 1960, that Dr. Scharf had informed him that Justus Müller Hofstede had seen the portrait at his home and endorsed the attribution to Rubens, describing it as a ‘very early Rubens’. When Burchard’s son, Wolfgang, was later contacted by Gaston Dulière, as a prospective buyer, he quoted his father’s original remarks with some additional precision on the dating: ‘My father dated the portrait as from 1597’, adding ‘My father’s opinion of the painting was based on the brushwork and drawing, especially of the flesh parts like the hands and face and not so much on the dress’ (Antwerp, Rubenianum, Rubens documentation, LB1293, cited in ibid.). The portrait was published by Hofstede in 1962 and 1983, and by Jaffé in 1989. When it was offered for sale at the Dorotheum in 2014, it was erroneously described as a copy after the portrait that had been published by Jaffé in 1989 and was thus catalogued as ‘Circle of Peter Paul Rubens’.
When cataloguing the portrait in 2021, Katelijne Van der Stighelen considered carefully the dating of the work and the relative quality of the execution of the flesh areas and the costume. Regarding the dating, she noted that the young man’s head and right hand are characterised by Rubens’ style of around 1610-15, with well-defined, sculptural forms, and that the somewhat stiff style of the portrait overall is typical of Rubens’ work from around 1615, when he produced several official portraits of the archdukes and other noble sitters. Commenting on the execution, she observed that the flesh areas are far subtler than the costume, the lower section of which has suffered and is of ‘inferior quality’ compared to the rest of the portrait, being executed in a ‘strikingly descriptive manner that is unusual even for Rubens’ own early style of portraiture’. She saw more merit in the collar and cuffs, the lace and hems of which are executed in minute detail, and the sleeves, which are furnished with a number of well-placed highlights that ‘splendidly enhance the curves of the precious fabrics’. She concluded: ‘it is quite possible that Rubens started the portrait and was himself responsible for the flesh areas, but that the costume details were later added by an assistant in his workshop’. Van der Stighelen thought the greyhound particularly well rendered, both in terms of how the gradations of the dogs’ coat have been painted and the psychology of the young hunting dog captured, as he gazes up to his owner. Indeed, she went as far as to declare it: ‘the most convincing part of the composition’. Van der Stighelen also remarked on the strikingly colourful palette, in which the gilded decoration of the costume stands out beautifully against the bluish grey background and dark red tablecloth.
Ludwig Burchard suggested that the sitter may have been a member of the Rubens family, perhaps his older brother Philipp (1574-1611), however, this proposal cannot be substantiated and does not align with Van der Stighelen’s dating of the picture. While the sitter’s identity has been lost, his fine attire and steel gorget are indicative of his high social standing. The steel gorget – a military attribute – is particularly striking and features more frequently in portraits in the Northern Netherlands, notably in Rembrandt’s portraits of the 1630s. Müller Hofstede suggested that this portrait might be a pendant to the portrait of A Young Woman with a Rosary in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid (ibid., no. 205, fig. 128). Although Van der Stighelen points out that while the portraits are of the same dimensions, the figures are framed quite differently and the portrait of the woman dates from an earlier period (c. 1609).